Before he can, I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “One more question.”
He sighs.“¿Qué más?”
“When I came over the other day…” I gulp and look away. “What were you doing?”
He chuckles, the sound low and delicious in his mouth. His hands slide around my bare hips, warm and so big they circle half my body. His touch sends an unexpected rush of shivery anticipation through me. He’s usually so mean I don’t even notice how gorgeous he is, and even sitting on his knee didn’t have the same effect. But something about the way his hands settle on my hips, the gesture obviously comfortable and familiar for him but brand new for me, makes heat creep up my neck.
“I was jerking off,” he says. “What’d it look like?”
Even though I was pretty sure I knew, hearing him say it so bluntly, so nonchalantly, shocks me into stillness. I gulp, unable to come up with a flippant answer to ease the tension. I’m sure as hell not going to tell him I heard him say my name right before he finished. Maybe I was only imagining things, anyway. The guy hates my guts.
His eyes seize on my mortified expression, and the cruel smirk I’m used to seeing on his lips returns. His eyes light up with malice, and he leans forward, until I can feel his warm breath feathering over my cheek.
“What about you, little girl?” he whispers, his lip just grazing the hairs on my cheek that are so fine they’re invisible, but somehow full of so much sensation I nearly topple off his lap as it rushes through me in a tidal wave. “Do you touch yourself?”
“No,” I mumble, too embarrassed to even meet his eye.
He leans his big body over mine, so his warm, bare chest presses into my shoulder. “I think you do,” he murmurs, his voice a velvet purr in my ear. “Do you think about me when you finger this sweet little cunt?”
His hand slides from my hip around the front, dipping between my legs and cupping me, holding me tightly against him.
My heart is pounding so hard I can’t breathe, and my body is frozen with indecision, a mixture of fear and arousal clashing inside me, harsh alarm bells clamoring in my head while my body chimes with the sweetest note. I wonder if he can feel how hot I am through my bathing suit, if he knows the wetness isn’t just from the pool. Somehow, that’s the most embarrassing part of all—not his words, but my own shameful reaction, something that should be hidden at all costs, so he won’t know, so he won’t have even more power than he does.
“Get off me,” I say, shoving at his arm.
“I’d rather get you off, but okay.” He gives a little squeeze, and I gasp audibly as his warm fingers pulse once against my soft flesh before slowly retreating. The most infuriating smile I’ve ever seen graces his lips. “You sure you’re seventeen?” he asks. “Because I don’t remember the girls in our grade last year being so sweet.”
“Just because only sluts want you, that doesn’t mean every girl is one.”
“Well, you’re too fucking innocent for us, that’s for damn sure,” he says, nudging me to get off his knee. “Why don’t you go talk to the girls? Maybe you’ll learn a little something you can use. Oh, and if you want to ride a gangster dick, ask them for tricks on taking one this big.”
I jump up from his knee like it burned me and stomp away. I’m not even going to dignify his comment with a response, and since I don’t have one, it works out. How can any family produce two sons that infuriating? Valeria was perfectly nice and even helped clean up after the party tonight. But her children are total jerks, and not just Maddox the Jerk Face. What was I thinking, sitting on his lap? I just saw him getting a blow job not an hour ago, for gods sakes. Her spit is probably still on his dick.
The thought sends me spiraling into fury, but instead of letting him know how much he got under my skin, I grab another beer and march over to a group of girls who are chattering about the fight.
“What’s up, yo?” I ask awkwardly, stepping in to join them.
“Oh my god, this is her,” Lexi says, standing on tiptoes and throwing an arm around my neck. She’s now dressed in a long-sleeve T that swallows her tiny frame and hangs nearly to her knees. “This is the girl I was talking about—the one who rescued me.”
“I don’t know if I rescued you,” I say, though a swell of warmth rises inside me at being praised.
“You totally jumped in there and tried to tackle Tony,” says the girl who had her hand in Lennox’s pants earlier. Apparently she’s forgotten our beef, because now she bumps her beer against mine. “That was sick.”
I laugh, the tension easing from me. “Thanks.”
“This is Rae, everybody,” Lexi says. “She owns the place. Rae, these are my homegirls—Mariana, Becky, Ines, Keisha, Lola, and my number one whore-bitch and homegirl, Marilyn.”
Marilyn gives her a sullen look, her goth makeup ringing her eyes from the damp heat.
“This party’s the bomb,” says Mariana, the girl who was impressed that I fought. “I wish I had a pool.”
“Well, now we do,” Lexi says. “Lenny said we can come over any time.”
I start to protest, but it’s too late to shut this down for tonight, so I decide to just go with the flow and let the party play out. It’ll be easier to explain things to them when they’re sober and not in a pack. So I sink into the party and the severe buzz I’ve gotten off the beer. I talk and laugh with the girls, and no one would ever know that in the back of my mind, a dark cloud is creeping closer and closer.
Finally, around dawn, it slams back into me. If I don’t get these people out of here, I’m totally dead. I start grabbing empty beer bottles and tossing them, urging everyone to leave. I see Keisha passed out on a lounge and try to rouse her to no avail.
“What’s the big deal, Sunshine?” asks Lennox, pulling me into his lap. He kisses my ear, his breath smelling of beer and a hint of smoke. “Let them sleep it off.”